THE TOOTH FAIRY'S GIFT

“I’m going to buy a Tonka tow truck with the money the Tooth Fairy gives me,” said Jordan, our six-year-old who was about to lose his first tooth.  

We were visiting our neighbours and the older kids were trying to tease Jordan so that he wouldn’t believe in the Tooth Fairy myth.

“There isn’t any Tooth Fairy,” said Alexis. 

“Don’t you know your Mom slips the quarter under your pillow?” said Gary. He said it with a been-there-believed-that–but-not-any- more attitude. 

Before either of the neighbourhood kids started to destroy the Santa and Easter Bunny myths, I changed the subject.

“Com’on Jordan; it’s time to go.”

For days after that experience, Jordan often expressed his concern.  “The Tooth Fairy does exist, doesn’t she, Dad?” He had even tried to draw a picture of her one day. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?” It was not easy to see the beauty from his picture but we got the idea that in his mind she looked like Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother.

Neither my wife nor I discouraged Jordan from his belief in her and did our best to reassure and comfort him about the Tooth Fairy’s existence. We convinced our daughter Marnie, a former and thankful recipient of the Tooth Fairy’s financial reward for her teeth, to go along with our pushing of the Tooth Fairy story to her younger brother.  “Remember how excited you were when you got your first quarter?” I reminded her.

Then one morning, while eating his breakfast, Jordan let out a gasp. “It came out. I can feel the space.” His tooth was now at the bottom of his bowl of Cheerios. He fished the small somewhat bloody tooth out of his cereal.  

Proudly he held it up for us to admire.

“I can’t wait until tonight when the Tooth Fairy will find it under my pillow.  She will come won’t she? How will she know it came out? Did you or Mom tell her that I had a loose tooth? Someone must have seen her to be able to tell us what she looks like. Do you think I might actually get to see her if I wake up when she is putting the money under my pillow?”

I could see it was going to be a hard task for his mother to exchange the valuable treasure with a quarter without waking him.

“Give the tooth to your mother so she can wrap it in cellophane. So it doesn’t get lost,” I said without answering any of his questions.

That night, Marnie helped her mother put Jordan to bed. She did some homework in her room for an hour or so, then with her mother’s permission, slipped back into Jordan’s room when she was certain that he would be deeply asleep and slipped five dimes taped in a row with clear tape and wrapped in cellophane under the pillow, making sure of course, to remove the tooth. 

She smiled down at her sleeping brother and quietly left the room with memories of her frequent Tooth Fairy visits and the excitement she had experienced afterwards. It was all good memories.

Next morning, the three of us made sure we were down in the kitchen before Jordan awoke. We were keen to see if all our promotion of the Tooth Fairy had paid off. 

Noises from the top of the stairs told us that Jordan was up and heading our way at a good clip. Rapid ‘clump, clumps’ of tiny footsteps coming down the stairs preceded Jordan bursting into the kitchen.

“She came! She came! The Tooth Fairy came” he shouted. 

“Look at the money she left me”. 

He went to each of us, showing off the five dimes he had been given. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five”, Jordan counted out slowly each time. 

His eyes shone with excitement and then he paused with a thoughtful expression on his sleep-wrinkled little face.

“I wasn’t sure she would really come you know. Gary and Alexis all told me it was a fake. I sort of believed them because they’re bigger and know lots more stuff than I do”. 

He paused again, as if he was choosing his next words very carefully for such a little fellow.

“But I have”, he hesitated, looking for the right word. “I have spoof”.

“Spoof?” I said gently. “I think the word you want is proof”.

“Yes, that’s it. I have proof that the Tooth Fairy is real!”

And with a theatrical flourish of his other hand, he held up a tattered, fraying piece of gossamer type fabric.

“It’s a piece of her dress. I found it on my floor over by the door. Her beautiful fairy dress must have caught on something and this piece ripped off. She left if for me! She wants me to show it to Gary and that bossy Alexis. So they’ll know they were wrong”.

With that satisfying declaration, Jordan twirled twice in place, much like a Tooth Fairy would surely do, and then he ran off up the stairs to get dressed so he could go out with me to buy the yellow Tonka truck down at the hardware store.

There was a stunned silence among the three of us. Marnie was the first to speak. 

“What was that Jordan had in his hand? The stuff he said was a piece of the Tooth Fairy’s dress?”.

Her mother smiled. “I’m pretty sure it’s a piece of my fabric softener sheet from the clothes dryer. Jordan’s right. It sure does look like it came from the Tooth Fairy’s dress”.

“I just figured out how it probably got on the floor in his room. Last night, on my way up to bed, I picked up a large load of clothes from the dryer and carried them upstairs to sort out this morning. At the last minute, I decided I would check on Jordan, so I went into his room, put the pile on the floor by his door and went over and gave him a small hug and kiss. You know, like I used to do to you too Marnie. Then I picked up the pile of clothes and left. In the dark, I must not have noticed the piece of fabric softener on the floor”.

We all agreed that was certainly how it happened. We also quickly agreed that this would be our secret, only to be shared much later, years maybe, with Jordan. Right now he had a treasure from the Tooth Fairy that was magical and special.

And while Marnie didn’t say this to us at the time, she was pleased with our decision to keep it all a secret between us. This was the first time ever that we had deliberately included her in an important secret. We were treating her like a grown-up person. 

Years later, she told us that felt really cool.

First Publication – In ‘Family Ties: Memories, Poetry and Good Food’ by Hidden Brook Press. ISBN 978-1-927725-17-7. November 23, 2014. The above version has been slightly edited from the original hard copy published version.

The Backstory – This is based on a true story within my family. In my spoken word performances, this tale continues to be one of my most popular stories.

Legal Rights. ‘The Tooth Fairy's Gift’ is the intellectual property of the author, Don Herald. No part of this story may be reproduced in any format without the written permission of the author.